USUAL critics and their followers do not appreciate what the government of President Marcos Jr. is doing in the area of international business development or simply the effort to entice investors to put their capital in the Philippines.
The President’s numerous travels, however, have benefitted certain sectors of the economy although the blessings are not yet palpable. Huge, ambitious business ventures take some time to take off.
During this gestation period, hope may seem thin and doubts may set in, but it is up to the Chief Executive and his economic managers to deliver on their promises of growth so that Marcos’ political capital shown by the millions of votes he received during the last presidential election would not be eroded.
Lately, some good news is filtering through the din of information providers. The Philippines expects to forge commercially meaningful partnerships with US businesses and investors with the arrival in the country of an American trade mission this week.
‘We just have to wait a little more to realize the concrete benefits from these plans.’
“There will be a high-level delegation comprised of 22 business delegates, C-level representatives from strategic sectors and iyong pag-uusapan po next week is of course how to enhance our trade and investment relations,” said Jollan Margaret Llaneza, the Department of Trade and Industry’s Foreign Trade Service Officer.
The visit of the trade mission headed by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is the result of the President’s trip to the United States last year, when US President Joe Biden made a commitment to send high-level trade and investment missions to the Philippines. In terms of the country’s trade and investment relationship, Llanera said the US belongs to the Philippines’ Top 3 trading partners, along with Japan and China.
Officials said the country intends to maximize benefits from trade agreements that we maintain with our strategic trading partners, particularly the US, Japan and China. We have a bilateral free trade pact with Japan, the Philippine-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, apart from the Japan-ASEAN trade arrangements.
With China, the Philippines maintains a free trade agreement with the Asian giant under the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement. Japan and China are part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). The country benefits from these trade agreements through much lower tariff rates as well as more liberalized market access for Filipino exporters.
Also this month, the President is expected to meet with major companies in Germany and the Czech Republic, that want to take advantage of the Philippines’ continuing good economic performance and conducive economic investment environment.
Marcos’ visits to Australia, meanwhile, have their early benefits for the economy as the DFA noted an increase in Australian interest in developing and processing local minerals for added value. They are particularly interested in mining “green metals” such as copper, cobalt, and nickel which are important raw materials for clean technologies such as electric vehicles and their batteries.
Copying the experience of Indonesia, the Philippines is eyeing to start local processing of these minerals to ensure higher value and for greater benefit to the economy instead of just exporting ores.
President Marcos reported that during his trip to Australia, he was able to secure 12 business agreements amounting to $1.53 billion or P86 billion, covering diverse sectors such as renewable energy, clean technology, and recycling solutions, housing, IT-BPM, infrastructure, medical devices, and digital health services.
We just have to wait a little more to realize the concrete benefits from these plans.
